SAN FRANCISCO — For a frigid hunk of rock and ice more than a billion kilometers away, Titan acts a lot like Earth. Lakes and seas that adorn Saturn’s largest moon may have formed in ways similar to those that created Earth’s bodies of water, according to an analysis of the newest map of Titan’s surface.

Vast, elongated seas and smaller, roundish lakes filled with oily liquid speckle the moon’s north pole. They could be the handiwork of tectonics and sinkholes, reported geophysicist Randolph K...